I backed into a white post and now have white paint on my truck. Any suggestions on how to remove it? I am concerned about the clearcoat and don't want to ruin the paint job. I bought some polishing compound, but the can says to use polishing compound for clearcoat.

...I bought some polishing compound, but the can says to use polishing compound for clearcoat.

So...? Are you saying your truck doesn't have clearcoat?

If it says you can use it on clear coat (can't imagine that it would say otherwise), apply a little of this compound to a clean cloth and rub the transferred paint in a circular motion. The transferred paint should begin to diminish, until it is finally gone.

You are unlikely to hurt your clear coat doing this manually. Polish it off with a clean dry cloth, and apply wax.

I would try washing it first, by hand. Use one of those special sponges that looks like it has mesh or netting on it, they are commonly used to remove bug debris/bug splatters from the from end(hand wash, not car wash). That and a little bit of liquid soap, mild liquid soap. If that didn't work then you can always try WD-40 and a clean microfiber cloth, you might be surprised at how well WD-40 works, it will not remove any clear-coat and is a safe product to use almost anywhere. After that if there are no results you can try wax, I have used a combination of WD-40 and wax to remove things like those pesky "caution" stickers that they slap all over a motorcycle. Then step up to the polishing compound. If the polishing compound shows some success then I would proceed with that. If it doesn't do anything then the next step may be a rubbing compound. You need to know what you are doing before you just grab and start rubbing around with this stuff. Rubbing compound will remove clear-coat, paint, primer, take it on down to bare metal if you stay after it, and not implying that you would, but just letting you know how much more powerful it is than polishing compound.

Last year, i had my 4runner parked at the boat launch and someone side swiped me with their trailer. It was a silver vehicle and was a white trailer. When I first saw it looked terrible. Luckily, it didn't dent it, but it did leave a streak on the front fender about 2 inch by 8 inches of white paint. I come from a back ground of painting and buffing, so I had a few things on hand. First of all I say this cautiously, because it can get you into trouble. I washed the vehicle to get rid of excess dirt that can act as an abrasive. This is the part I caution you on, I took a soft clean cloth with a small amount of lacquer thinner and in a spot that couldn't be seen made sure the lacquer thinner didn't affect the finish.

Once I saw it didn't affect the finish, I tried a small amount on a clean cloth. It immediately took the white paint off and I didn't leave it on more than 30 seconds. I immediately washed the spot with dawn dish soap to remove any lacquer thinner. This took the white paint off, but I was still left with a slight scratching. The next step was to use 1500, 2000-3000 wet sand. I then started with buffing material and worked back to polishing pad/ polish. I was able to get this plenty acceptable.

I am just telling you how I did this, it is very easy to mess this up and make it worse if you don't know what you are doing. I would worry about 2 things that could go wrong with this repair. Don't use a solvent that affects the finish and get it off immediately. Second, depending on the color white and silver are pretty forgiving, black not so much, polishing is going to leave scratches. You need to get these out by using progressively finer material and pads. I will guarantee if you are working with a black vehicle, you will definitely see the scratches.

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